Springfield Magic

Remembering the birth of a local restaurant phenomenon

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Before 1983, ethnic food in Springfield was pretty
much limited to Italian (American) restaurants, Chinese restaurants (owned
by émigrés who geared the food to American palates), and
gringo Mexican taco joints (tasty but hardly authentic). Who could have guessed that a tiny coffee shop in a
semi-seedy motel at North Grand and Veterans Parkway would change the
Springfield dining scene forever? My husband, Peter, and I went there shortly after we
heard about it, intrigued by the notion of Thai cuisine. The place was
spotlessly clean but shabby. This was not a drawback to us. We’d
spent much of our leisure time and limited finances visiting establishments
listed in the Good but Cheap Chicago
Restaurant Guide during Peter’s years in
dental school. Most of the restaurants listed were small ethnic
eateries, and we had fun exploring them. A few Chinese places were in the
guide, but we also relied on Peter’s Chinese classmates for
recommendations. Those restaurants were certainly off the tourist trail,
and we soon realized that it was best to go with Peter’s friends so
that they could translate. For years the United States was involved in a
Southeast Asian war that had cost countless dollars and lives, but the
region’s cuisine was still unknown to most Americans. In our
naïveté, we wondered whether it was much different from those
little places in Chinatown. It’s been 24 years, but the memory of our first
visit to that tiny Springfield coffee shop is still vivid. We ordered
lemongrass soup. Our server, a short redheaded woman, tried to warn us:
“It’s really, really hot,” she said. We, somewhat arrogantly,
assured her that that was fine; we liked hot food. Was it pain, or was it pleasure? It was hard to tell.
It was both. The flavors were explosive: bright, bold, searing, unlike
anything we’d ever experienced. As we stumbled into the parking lot,
steam still rising from our heads, we were in total agreement: The food was
fantastic, but the Magic Kitchen could never succeed here. It just goes to show how much we knew. When I recently told Gay Amorasak (that redheaded
server) about our initial reaction, she laughed: “Yeah, we
didn’t really think it would work, either, but we were desperate to
make money. We had two or three Thai dishes on the menu, but the rest was
stuff like corndogs.” Amorasak, a Springfield native, had served in the
Peace Corps in Thailand. After returning, she headed to Chicago for nursing
school. Mutual friends introduced her to Dang Amorasak, who’d
recently come from Thailand to join his brother. After their marriage, Gay
and Dang moved to Springfield. Dang wasn’t a professional chef, but
his entire family — men included — were excellent cooks, and
his mother had been a chef for a relative of the Thai royal family, so
opening a restaurant was a natural move. By 1985, business was brisk and the Magic Kitchen
moved to its current location, on Peoria Road. A gas station in the 1940s
and ’50s, the place had a funky ambience: knotty-pine walls and a
glassed-in side room for the increasingly large crowds waiting for a table.
The house in back, where the Amorasaks lived, had been a bootlegging
establishment during Prohibition, complete with a tunnel reportedly used by
Al Capone on his visits from Chicago. The Magic Kitchen became a Springfield restaurant
phenomenon. The food was incredibly good and incredibly cheap, even though
the Amorasaks insisted on quality ingredients: real crabmeat, suitcases
full of authentic curry pastes brought back from annual trips to Thailand,
no MSG or gloppy sauces — and it was BYOB. Maybe it’s because the Magic Kitchen was my
first exposure, but over the years I’ve eaten at many Thai
restaurants in the United States and abroad but have never found any quite
as good — even the very expensive and highly regarded Arun’s in
Chicago. Tuesday-Saturday, patrons began lining up outside the
Magic Kitchen before 5 p.m., and there was a waiting list until the last
diners were seated, around 10 p.m. Strategic planning was necessary to
avoid a long wait: Getting there at 4:45 p.m. usually ensured a first
seating, but coming just a couple of minutes before 5 meant risking a wait
for the second seating; after that, it was every man for himself. Unless it was bitterly cold — and sometimes
even then — the side room couldn’t hold everyone, so people
spilled into the parking lot. Most brought coolers of wine or beer and
began sipping while waiting. Crowd control became an issue, especially with
so many people drinking for an hour or more before eating. In 1993, Gay
pulled the plug: No more BYOB (the restaurant has never had a liquor
license). “That slowed things down for awhile,” Gay
says, “but before long we were as busy as before.” By 1995, the
Amorasaks were exhausted. “I used to peel 10 pounds of garlic a
week!” laughed Gay. “We just couldn’t do it any
longer.” They sold the Magic Kitchen to longtime employees Soumaly
and Sang Thongsithauong and moved to Hawaii for two years before returning
to central Illinois. The Amorasaks opened a health-food store in Champaign,
the Natural Gourmet, with a tiny kitchen where Dang cooks a few Thai items
for lunches. After a brief bumpy period, husband Sang and wife
Soumaly had the Magic Kitchen running smoothly but eventually divorced.
Soumaly kept the Magic Kitchen and opened a second location; Sang started
Thai Kitchen and Thai Kitchen 2. For the most part, the food at both Magic Kitchens is
as good as ever. The BYOB policy was reinstated at the Peoria Road
location. The new restaurant, which has a liquor license, serves lunch.
Except for a few new items (all excellent), the menu is unchanged.
Dessert’s the only thing that has suffered: The homemade pies turned
out by Ann Clough (Gay’s mother) were legendary. Most people reserved
their favorites the minute the server came to the table to ensure that they
wouldn’t run out. These days, the pies are commercially produced. If
I have room for dessert, I opt for sticky rice with tropical fruit. The multiple locations means that the restaurants,
though busy, don’t experience the crazy traffic jams of those early
years. It’s nice to be able to go without having to time arrivals
with military precision. Honestly, though, it was kind of fun. Magic Kitchen, 4112 Peoria Rd. (217-525-2230) and 115
N. Lewis St. (217-525-6975); Thai Kitchen, 620 N. Ninth St. (217-527-1665);
Thai Kitchen 2, 2355 W. Monroe St. (217-726-5900). Send questions and comments to Julianne Glatz at
realcuisine@insightbb.com.